Hearing impairment detracts from the quality of life of a substantial portion of the population. Problems caused by hearing loss can range from a source of frustration to depression and withdrawal.
The ability of hearing impaired individuals to understand speech, also sometimes known as the intelligibility of speech, is limited by a number of factors. One is the level of ambient noise in the environment in which the speech is occurring. Another is the inability of the hearing impaired to hear the very soft levels of the important high frequency components of human speech. Reverberation from room acoustics also limits hearing impaired individuals' ability to understand speech.
Systems for enhancing the intelligibility of speech are generally known and disclosed, for example, in the Klayman U.S. Pat. No. 6,993,480 and the Dunn et al. U.S. Patent Application Publications 2005/0195996 and 2010/0166209, which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety for all purposes. There remains, however, a continuing need for improved systems to enhance the intelligibility of speech for the hearing impaired.